Classic Pesto: Shed loads of basil, toasted pine nuts, finely grated parmesan, and as much garlic as you like (roasted first if you want a milder flavour). Whizz it up with with enough XV olive oil to make a saucy consistency and then pig out! Great on pasta of course, but also in sarnies, on grilled portobello mushrooms with mozzarella, and layered with cheese and spinach in a quick veggie lasagne. I also like to add a few good spoonfulls into basic tomato sauce to give it a bit more depth.
There are endless possibilities for adapting the pesto concept, depending on your particular herb glut (Italians look away now!...) try coriander pesto to add to dishes with an eastern flavour, for example. My current favourite is parsley pesto - a truly English pesto if you team it with roasted pumpkin seeds, swaledale ewe's milk cheese and roasted pumpkin seeds... and you must call it 'parsleh pestoe' in your finest Yorkshire accent!
3 comments:
Yum Yum :o)
Oh yummy, my basil (grown on the terrace of a seventh floor apartment in NYC) is ready for picking too! You've inspired me to make some pesto this weekend and in place of garlic use some of the garlic scapes I picked up at the farmers market this weekend. I used the first half of the garlic scapes making white bean and garlic scapes dip from a to-die-for recipe from the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/18/dining/18appe.html?ref=dining.
Cool - I've been looking for a pesto recipe - have basil glut!
In other news - thank you for your lovely blog, Lou!
http://meemalee.blogspot.com/2009/07/one-lovely-blog-award.html
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